Eric:

Thnks for the news.

Anything in it on Hoving's one apparent blind spot in spotting fakes and
forgeries, i.e. fake (or utterly implausible) documentation and
"provenances" for stolen and smuggled items offered to major museums by
utterly clean and blameless dealers in smart suits, e.g. the "Lydia"
Treasure (now back in Turkey) or the Etruscan "Euphronius" vase (most of
which is in the Met. though the Italian authorities are reputed to have a
few missing bits that were missed by the looters and this left behind in
the robbed-out tomb)?

Patrick Boylan

==============================================

On Tue, 10 Feb 1998, Eric Siegel wrote:

> Subject: Hoving's Book
> Newsgroups:   bit.listserv.museum-l
>
> I just borrowed "False Impressions," Thomas Hovings relatively new book,
> from the library.  The guy is incredible, brazen, self-congratulatory,
> facile, and fascinating.  He posits the existence of a group of super
> authenticators, that he calls "fakebusters."  He, of course, is among the
> foremost.  He treats us to copies of his notes upon first seeing what
> eventually proves to be a fake, showing his prescience and acuity.
>
> But he is the closest thing the museum profession has to a superstar...and
> there is some great dish on whopping big fakes that museums have been
> suckered into buying.  Good read.
>
> Eric Siegel
>